Sunday, 31 August 2008

We finally caught Nan and Grandad in at the same time and they were over the moon. They were very impressed by the photo, though it required some explaining and very enthusiastic. Mum said that when she spoke to her afterwards Nan said "I've never seen two people so excited to tell their news!" which made me laugh as we were rather hyper!

I was very pleased that they were happy - Nan is quite old fashioned in her outlook with some things and prefers her grandkids to be married before producing kids but she didn't make any comment, just discussed baby names and so on all evening with us.

Yesterday we went to see Pauline and broke to news to the kids. Tina was really excited and has decided to make a book of names for us to choose from. Ryan had a typical teenage grunt to contribute but did ask some questions so was a little interested. We then headed to Johns grandparents and let them know. They too were happy but couldn't really make head nor tail of the picture no matter how long we explained it too them. We then headed out for a meal to celebrate Paulines birthday and headed home ( I slept most of the way), where John immeadiately changed his facebook status to "John is busy spreading good news!" and sent out messages to just about everyone letting them know. Today his status now reads "John is going to be a DAD!"

Wednesday, 27 August 2008

Well we have had another scare - Monday John and I went for a wander round Virginia Waters and, about half way round I started to get some pain in my pelvis and sort of dismissed it as trapped wind in the same way as I had with the few twinges that I had in the previous couple of days. As the day went on the pain got steadily worse and worse and eventually kept me awake most of the night. When I woke in the morning it was very painful, making things ache from my mid thigh to my mid back and the only way to alleviate it was to lay very very still.

To add insult to injury Thai has been very ill too with severe diaorear and desperately needed to go to the vets for a check up. John decided he couldn't go to work and rang the doctor and got me an appointment and the same for Thai with the vet. Typically, as the time to see the doctor approached, the pain lessened until I barely had any pain when I got there. The doctor poke and prodded me in as uncomfortable way as possible (but was very nice) and said that she didn't think it was anything to worry about but that I should have another scan to confirm that there wasn't any problem. They couldn't get hold of the EPU immeadiately so we came home and awaited a call with a time. Unfortunately it turned out they couldn't get an appointment until the next day, so we took Thai to the vets and got some bits and bobs for her poor tum. John was very worried all day, but I really felt that this was going to be fine as everything I read said if there was no blood it was very unlikely to be a problem.

Next morning, however, I have NO morning sickness for the first time in ages, I slept well so am not tired and all in all, all signs of pregnancy are gone so I began to panic. John headed for work for the morning and I sat home and worried and worried and worried and...

Finally, John got back and we headed off to the scan. The same doctor who saw us the first time met us there and within a couple of minutes I was lying on the bed with goop all over my tummy and THERE IT WAS! It is definately my child as it was flailing around with the coordination of a drunken spider, moving arms legs and head around way more than either of us had expected to see. This time I remembered to ask for a picture and here is baby Juerss:

You can see the head, eyes, nose and mouth, an arm and a leg poking up. I cried a lot, John cried a lot and all in all we were very very happy. The scan was very efficient and checked out for potential problems but if anything was too fast, we were in and out in a minute or two - I just wanted to just look at my baby!

We decided to head over to Mum's to show her the piccy, via my Nan's as, now we had a picture, we could NOT keep quiet any longer. After a quick detour to get John a new coat, we headed to Nan's only to find she had nipped out! We visited with Grandad for a while and fixed his freeview box before finally giving up and going on to Mum's.

Mum was duely impressed by the piccy and despite a lot of insult hurling between Kris and JJ, there was a lot of giggling etc. going on. They were supposed to be packing for their extreamely early morning trip to Germany today but we successfully held them up on that! On the way back we drove by Nan's to see if she was in yet but the car wasn't there (she is a demon bowler and was bowling in a friendly) so we headed home cursing her to check on poor Thai who was much better...

Monday, 25 August 2008

The family got together at the Worpleston Place Hotel yesterday to congratulate Kris and have a meal. Unfortunately, Thai had been very VERY sick the night before so I was feeling quite ill when we arrived but John ran interferance and distracted everyone with the new car - a very posh Volvo V70, which has replaced me in his affections for the time being!

We had a lovely meal and it wasn't a problem that I couldn't finish it all and John and Grandad inhaled any left overs in a split second. Mum was a bit concerned as she could see I was being careful about what I was eating and thought I would have to be sick and Kris said I kept rubbing my stomach so might give it away. What is more, it was SO hard just to blurt it all out, particularly to Nan and Grandad!

Thursday, 21 August 2008

She got an A in maths! All the frustration, trying to find yet another way to explain how to use fractions, was SO worth it. It means that she is definately going to her first choice, York and we are all over the moon.

Unfortunately, Dad wasn't feeling well so we didn't go out to celebrate but John and I decided to go and try the Italian out towards Ascot that we've been meaning to try for a while. The place was nice but the service was really really slow despite plenty of staff and being quite empty.

Thursday, 14 August 2008

She an A and a B in her A-levels (and was only one point off a A) so now is just waiting for her GCSE result to find out which university that she will go to.

EDIT : Bangor has changed their offer to unconditional so regardless she definately has a place, now just to see if she gets her first choice - York.

We went to the Golden Retreiver to celebrate, which mostly involved a lot of reminiscing and giggling (including a great story about Dad that inspired me to find two versions of to "11 more months and 10 more days").

To my disgust, when it came to pudding, I couldn't bear to have chocolate sauce on my ice cream but I couldn't eat it all (it was inhaled by Kris and John so didn't go to waste) - most annoying!

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Apparently morning sickness is supposed to be getting better this week and I really hope so as last week was the worst so far - sick and dizzy almost all day and unable to keep much down. On one day I ran to be sick in the kitchen and got so dizzy I ran slap bang into a wall!

However, Friday I seemed a lot better and since then, although I have had minor waves of nausea, I mostly seem to feel OK. The tiredness is extreme however and I am sleeping for about an additional four hours a day at the moment! As a result I am having more dreams - I tend to remember my dreams anyway and they tend to be fairly epic in scale and content, however they are now way stranger and more epic. There are the normal pregnancy type dreams - having miscarriages, having GIANT babies, having huge amounts of babies, giving birth to weird creatures and in weird situations and so on. But there are two that really stand out that weren't really related to pregnancy and they were so weird they deserve recording...

Dream 1 : Mushrooms

This started with John and I walking with our two young children up an Alpine pass towards a house on the mountain side that I knew was Mum and Dad's house. Getting to the house there was no answer when we knocked so John decided back down to the village with the kids and I would wait for Mum and Dad there. I kept knocking and, finally Dad's voice came from an upstairs window - I couldn't see anyone and we chatted for a bit, the whole time with me walking backwards trying to see in the window. Eventually Dad comes closer to the window and he is a giant talking red cartoon mushroom and this seems completely natural to me! We carrying on chatting for a bit and then he told me to go down to the fete and he would meet me down there. As I turn away he turned blue and a small red mushroom appeared carved on the windowsill of the house. I wandered down the hill and soon noticed I was walking beside a series of ornately carved grates (they had "Birthday celebration tunnel" engraved on them with leaves and animals) in the road and, as I got level with them a blue shower of sparks would shoot out of them. Peering down the grate, I see dad/mushroom shooting down the tunnel and the blue sparks are caused by his passing the grates. He gets ahead of me and I carry on down.

Getting to the village I find an empty fete with Mum guarding the stalls - her stall contains hundreds of different size/shape/color paper cake cases and really ornate paperclips. I spend a while chatting with Mum and then say "Where is everyone?". She explains that they are up the opposite hill in the courtyard and that I should hurry or I may miss the countdown. I am confused and she says "Don't you remember when you were kids?" I don't but head off anyway.

At the top of the hill, there was a giant courtyard filled with people who were unhappy and mean and horrible. I could see John and the kids at the front, so I pushed my way through and, as I did people started counting down from 10. When they reached 0, a hole opened in the ground and Dad/mushroom shot out up high into the sky and landed on the podium at the front.

He said "Thank you all for coming. I can see there are much more than last year but I will do my best" and then exploded into a million little bits which fell on the crowd. As they touched people, they were absorbed and people had epiphanies - people how were unhappy as they were in debt realised what they needed to do to get out of it, suicidal people remembered loved ones and basically everyone was happy. When one landed on me I had the feeling of a hug and turning round I realised it was my Dad in human form. I gave him a big hug and John, Dad the kids and I all headed back down the hill to see Mum. When we got there, I asked why she hadn't attended and she said she didn't like to watch the ceremony. And then I woke up...

Dream 2 : Suicide Cult

This one was much darker and I had it this morning - It started with me waking in hospital having tried to commit suicide. It hadn't worked and it took a long time to recover but while waiting I realised that there was a market for guaranteed suicide and that I could provide it. I invented devices that were like a sword, the hilt being within a half dome of metal and the blade being cross shaped (ie if it was pointy end towards you, it looked like a cross). They were attached to a machine that meant that, when stabbed with the sword, there was no blood and the person stabbed would then decide when he would die - they could die immediately if that is what they wanted, if they wanted to die at home, they would die until the point when they got there, if they wanted to die in their loved ones arms they wouldn't die until they got to them and, most importantly, if they changed their mind, they would not die until their natural time was up.

I set up a stall in a market saying I would kill people for £10 - they had to verify that they were over 18 and tell me why they wanted to die and then I would kill them. The machine seemed to change me so I didn't need to eat, sleep or drink and a queue soon built up of people that wanted to die. Over years a religion built up around me, they built a office/temple behind my stall and provide a secretary who sorted out forms and recorded peoples information. They took dna samples so remains could be identified and those who had no relatives left were disposed of in the basement. Trends began to build up and, there was a marriage bureau next door we would get couples who went to get married then went to lunch and then joined the queue to die together. It became more and more ritualised - people knew to tell me their stories before death and so I lost the ability to talk. At times, people who were upset (understandably but I couldn't understand in my dream) would attack me but I had somehow become immortal.

Sometimes, as well as killing and listening to peoples stories, I was also a person in the queue - the first time I couldn't go through with it so I left the queue, the second time I wasn't allowed as the tests performed by the secretary showed I was pregnant and the last time I went hand in hand with John and we both died.

There was never any pause in the queue, even in the dead of night until one day there was only one man in the queue. He was a journalist, writing a story on how the queue was waining and in order for the article to work, he had to die at the end of it so he wrote "and I died", handed me his notepad and I killed him where he stood.

There were no more in the queue and I waited for a while and then walked into the deserted temple behind me, the first time I had moved in hundreds of years, put the swords on the floor and smashed them completely, took the symbol of the religion that someone had given me and hung it above a double door and walked out the back and into wilderness. I wandered for years, just letting my soul absorb all the stories I had heard over the years and finally decided to return to civilization. But it was chaos, I had killed everyone with imagination and inspiration and only dull, lazy morons were left. And then I woke up...

Now, if anyone can tell me what the hell they are supposed to mean I would be most grateful!

Wednesday, 6 August 2008

Today we met the midwife - a very nice happy woman who did her best to not let us have a word in edgewise. She spoke very quickly and didn't really explain things much (for example she went through a list of appointments that we would be having over the next few months and it was only because I asked that I found out that after the first two, which would get letters about, we would have to remember to book the others.

There was tons of paperwork to fill in - most of which she did - and, on top of copies of all that, we also had tons of paperwork to read through - magazines and vouchers and information about scans and tests and paperwork you have to take with you to the hospital and paperwork which you don't and paperwork which you may or may not need and on and on and on...

To add insult to injury, I had forgotten that I would need to give a urine sample and so only managed to squeeze out half a teaspoon, which was luckily enough to test. All in all, everything was ok - I have an appointment next week for a blood test and will have to see a consultant as I am overweight and due to Mum's blood pressure problem during her pregnancies but all in all things look rosy. We should get and appointment in the next few weeks for a scan at frimley (called the dating scan where they give you a definative - in so far as it can be - due date) - probably for sometime in the first week of september. We then can start telling peopole about the pregnancy and put poor mum out of her misery!

After the appointment we headed out to get an expanding folder to hold all the bits and bobs that we have been given and also pick up our freebie packs. Boots don't have any in and John is picky about the folder so we end up going to Reading and picking up one of the packs and a folder. We go to pick up the second pack but they only have ones that expire at the end of the month - not much use to us! I am flagging big time, so we head home and go through the ream of paperwork and open up the pack. I am not dreadfully impressed with the contents - there are vouchers for nappies (but we have decided to use reusable nappies), vouchers for pregnacare cream (which I bought about an hour ago), a pack of nappy wipes which are useful, a pack of Ovaltine (which I feel is stretching the pregnancy theme a little), a cardboard "frame" for a scan picture, baby book, a DVD leading you the stages of your babies development and a CD with the sounds that you baby hears in the womb and suggested music to play to your baby, a magazine and a LOT of advertising bumpf. I was less than excited by the contents, maybe the other one will be better when we pick it up...

Friday, 1 August 2008

Yesterday morning, when I went to the loo, I found I had a tiny amount of dried blood. I immediately turned to the Internet and found that bleeding, though not considered "normal" is common and not really anything to worry about unless it is continuous, heavy or fresh. I decided not to panic and there was no more blood during the rest of the day so I put it out of my mind. Next morning, however, more old blood, and what is more, yesterday and today I had no morning sickness at all. I decided to give the doctors receptionist a ring as soon as the office opened and see if she thought I should pop in for a checkup.

They got Dr Newton to give me a ring and, after a quick chat, she concluded that there was probably nothing to worry about but it was policy to send any women in the first trimester who was having bleeding to the early pregnancy unit to have a scan. I rang to make an appointment while she made out the request form and then I gave John a ring to let him know what was going on. As soon as he heard, he decided he would head home to go with me. The appointment wasn't until 2.30, and I did fairly well, stayed quite calm and not too unhappy, but in my heart of hearts I was sure that this was it and kept comforting myself by repeating, well it might have taken some time but we got pregnant once, we can do it again...

John, however, was a mess when he got home - very upset and worried. He arrived in plenty of time but I had been drinking water all morning in order to have a full bladder for the scan and had over done it so was desperate for a wee and it was ages until the scan! I decided to give in, have a wee, then drink loads of water so I would have a full bladder again. We also needed to nip to the doctors and pick up the form that the doctor had completed, so a quick wee and a drink and off we went.

The doctor not only had the form but also John's prescription ready too so we then went on to the chemists to drop it off. When we got back, we didn't have long before leaving so John grabbed some very smelly pizza for his lunch and I got to drink fluids. Half way through the first glass, the combination of smelly pizza and morning sickness hit and so I threw up all I had drunk (almost putting John off his lunch)! So now I had to drink WAY more water so I drank a glass while pouring a bunch of squash into a bottle and we finally set off to the doctors, me sipping all the way.

I was feeling fairly rough by now, but the people at the early pregnancy unit were lovely and soon got us signed in and within 1/2 hour we were asked in for the scan.

Later watching TV, John mentioned that a woman looked like the lady who did the scan but I was so worried and caught up it could have been the incredible hulk welding the unit and I wouldn't have noticed!

Before I knew it, the operator had splooshed warm gel on my tum and was having a good look inside. It seemed ages, but was probably just seconds, before she let us know that the baby was just fine and the cervix was closed and the baby's heart was beating. Having said that, all we could recognise on screen was a small blob in a dome shaped cavity with a small white flicker, which she assured us was a heart beat. For £2, we could have got a picture but at the time were so het up and worried that we didn't ask for one - I do wish we had now but never mind, it was not recognisable as a baby yet anyway.

Before we knew it, I was able to head for the loo and then to meet the doctor who just confirmed that everything was fine and not really to worry. I grinned like a moron all the way down to the car, where I burst into tears of relief and sobbed for about 5 minutes while poor John tried to work out what was wrong.

I was starving, having not eaten since breakfast so we headed off to get lunch but, in revenge for the non-existent morning sickness the day before, it attacked again and before I could eat I had to throw up, as quietly as possible, in loos.

Between lunch and bedtime, I then had to wee 12 times to get rid of all the water I drank and felt awful all day long, but emotionally, I had seen the baby so was over the moon! Up til now, despite the morning sickness, mood swings and being SO tired, it didn't really feel real and I had half convinced myself that I just had a strange tummy bug, but now I have a BLOB (er, baby)!